Inspiration to Reach Out

Today the Heartland North District sponsored the event Reaching Out: Inspiration and Ideas for the Small Church, held at Lexington UMC. Bishop Schnase was our keynote speaker. I am so grateful that Bishop was able to be present and talking---he was ill this week. He also led one of our workshops. Other workshop topics included reaching out to children in the neighborhood; older adults involved in mission; lay speaking; building missional leaders; using technology in the small church; and a panel of "it worked for us" panel describing three hands on ministry. About 90 persons were there, to learn and be inspired.

A big thank you from me to: Barbara Webb, my admin who is ALWAYS helpful; Kevin Buckrucker, Heartland North lay leader; and Rosann Malter, chair of our district learning team.

I was struck today when our bishop spoke how he was careful to tell folks that when they plan a program or an even which the church has prayed intently about and spent a lot of time organizing and planning, that results not always come quickly. But keep at it. And the results, when they do come, and new folks start showing interest in the church, may not be very small innumber. Bishop often uses the parable of the sower and the seed...you scatter, some take root, some doesn't, even MOST don't. But only by the grace of God some does and that is worth it all.

Thanks to all the leaders and all the folks at Lexington that made today a great day!

I led a worship first thing, and above is the altar arrangement that I did to go along with my devotion on "Let the Lower Lights be Burning." (I am pretty sure I did a blog post on that back in the fall of '05). A special thanks to Christine Tucker-Key for sending me this pic!

In short, small churches need to let their lights shine!